Duchess By Night

Page 23

“I didn’t mean the chambermaids.”
“They are women, Papa. And they work very very hard, I assure you. I think the laundry maids work the hardest. They have to heat all the water in a copper holding. And I do like clean clothes, Papa. Sometimes I feel guilty about that.”
It was moments like this when Jem really wished that Sally hadn’t died. “I suppose I didn’t mean women. I meant ladies. Ladies often don’t work terribly hard.”
“I haven’t met very many,” Eugenia said thoughtfully. She accepted a toast finger with marmalade. And then: “Papa, have I ever met a lady?”
“Yes,” he said. “Your governess is a lady. And Mrs. Patton is a lady. She visited last year, do you remember?”
The door opened and Cope entered. “My daughter, Eugenia,” Jem said brusquely. “Eugenia, this is Mr. Cope.”
Jem rather liked the way that Cope eyed the quivering beef on his plate.
“I’ve already eaten twice that amount,” he told him unrepentantly. “It’ll do you good. With eggs to follow.” He gestured to a footman, who promptly placed two yellow eggs on Cope’s plate.
The man wasn’t a lily-liver. He clearly didn’t like what was before him, but he took up a knife and fork and attacked it anyway.
Eugenia behaved very properly and waited to be spoken to.
“I’m afraid I know little about the interests of small girls,” Cope said to her. “What kind of things do you do with your day?”
That, of course, was all the invitation Eugenia needed. She reeled into a discussion of mathematical angles, her curiosity cabinet, her collection of tradesmens’ cards. “But what I like best of all is reading plays,” she finished. “Papa owns the Hyde Park Theater, and he causes the company to perform their dress rehearsal here, so I see everything before it goes to London.”
“I see you are a theatrical family,” Cope said politely enough.
The comment poked at Jem’s conscience. He probably shouldn’t have actors around Eugenia, not to mention the fact that he should be screening her reading material. When he inherited the theater from his father, inviting the actors to rehearse at Fonthill had been a careless decision when his attention was focused elsewhere, probably on the Game. It had turned into a tradition before he knew it.
“Beer for both of us,” he told the footman, who promptly poured a great foaming tankard for Cope.
Jem took a deep swallow. He wasn’t a proponent of beer, in truth. After a good decade of hard drinking and hard living, he’d stopped drinking almost entirely when he realized that Eugenia was a person rather than a squalling nuisance off in the nursery.
Cope sipped his tankard. That was another thing he’d have to teach him, Jem thought, adding it to an ever-growing mental list. No sipping. Men don’t sip.
“Papa won’t let me quote plays anymore,” Eugenia was telling Cope.
Cope raised an eyebrow. “Is it the act of quotation that’s banned, or the plays?”
“Her governess was concerned that she was forgetting normal speech. Everything she said was in blank verse and written by another person.”
“That’s not correct, Papa,” Eugenia said with great dignity. “It’s merely that I love to memorize, and there are so many moments when a quotation comes to mind.”
“It wasn’t only the fact that she spoke almost entirely in blank verse,” Jem told Cope. “It was the selections she chose.”
“I like old plays the best,” Eugenia said.
“Old bawdy plays,” Jem said.
“They’re funny!”
“I forbade her reading for a month after she asked me what it meant to have sweet violet beds, pressed to death with maidenheads.”
“Oh,” Cope said.
Jem saw with some satisfaction his utter inability to answer that particular question reflected in Cope’s face. He pushed away from the table. “We’re going to have a fencing lesson now, poppet. You’d better go back to the nursery.”
“Please let me come,” Eugenia said. “I’m so lonely by myself.” She looked truly distraught, except that Jem had known her long enough to instantly recognize every dramatic scene she had in her repertoire.
“Ah—” Cope said.
“I’m all alone in the nursery,” Eugenia said, clasping her hands and getting into her stride. She tried fluttering her lashes at Cope, but he just looked bemused.
Jem snorted, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to be alone with Cope. God forbid he should find himself in another discussion of hair color. Not that it was Cope’s fault exactly, but he just seemed to bring out a side of Jem that—that—
Didn’t exist.
“All right,” he barked. “You can watch us if you stay out of the way.”
He led the way to the portrait galley in the east wing, listening with half an ear to the lively discussion behind him. Just as Villiers had described, it appeared that Cope had hardly even visited London, and so hadn’t seen any current plays. But like Eugenia, he’d read quite a few. Eugenia was breaking the rules and quoting a line here or there, but Jem didn’t feel like scolding her in front of a stranger.
Though Cope was quickly turning into something other than a stranger.
A few years ago, Jem had had all the portraits in the gallery taken down and put in the attics somewhere. They weren’t of his relatives, anyway, just moldering old courtiers who came along with the house.
Instead the long corridor was lined with glass cases stuffed with curiosities. Some things still interested him, and others he’d ceased to care much about. But he liked the idea of collecting them all in one room—and the portrait gallery was the only space large enough for a stuffed ibis, not to mention the crown of an African prince, featuring orange-, blue-, and green-tipped plumage.
Eugenia pulled Cope over to the display cabinets. Jem leaned against a wall to watch. He hadn’t let a male guest put a finger on Eugenia since she turned five, but there was something about Cope that told him clear as a bell that the man was no danger to a little girl. He might be unable to perform with one of the Graces when it came down to it, though Jem hoped for his sake that wasn’t the case. He might even turn out to be a molly.
Jem had had plenty of men of that persuasion visit the house over the years, and he knew well enough that sin has nothing to do with the gender of a bed-partner.
Cope was nothing to worry about, not with those eyes. So he turned away as Eugenia pulled Cope from case to case, pointing out the supposed unicorn’s horn and the white swamp-hen from Australia.
Povy had the practice rapiers laid out. Jem pulled off his jacket and boots, tested the steel, and made some practice forays.
“Let’s do this, shall we?” he finally called.
It turned out that Cope had trouble pulling his own boots off. Jem didn’t curl his lip too much, merely noting the obvious: a man should be able to valet himself.
Cope didn’t reply, just wrenched at his boots until one came off. Eugenia came to help, squealing with giggles as she tried to pull off the other boot, so finally Jem had to take over, to his disgust. He tossed the boot to the side of the room.
“Coat off,” he called. “Waistcoat too.”